Why The Wharton School Adopted Panopto for Campus-wide Lecture Capture and Video Management

SEATTLE, July 14, 2015 — Since 2002, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has offered a blended learning curriculum to its students through the use of lecture capture technology. Over the last decade, the business school has experimented with several lecture recording technologies to further understand the needs of its faculty and identify new opportunities to improve student learning with video. In 2013, Wharton switched to Panopto based on its flexibility, scalability, and customer service, and over the past two years, the school has realized its long-standing vision of cost-effective, campus-wide video learning.

The Challenge: Reproducing the Classroom Experience using Video
In the summer of 2002, Wharton opened the Jon M. Huntsman Hall, a new building designed with state-of-the-art lecture capture technology. At the back of each classroom, a fixed camera captured video and audio of the lecturer, providing students with an on-demand recording of each class.

Based on the system’s initial success, Wharton adopted a more sophisticated lecture recording system several years later. The new solution enabled the business school to capture higher-quality video as well as slides and other lecture materials. Unfortunately, the solution required expensive, specialized hardware, and as a result, was unable to scale to all of Wharton’s classrooms.

The Solution: Panopto’s Flexible, Software-Based Video Platform
After evaluating a range of lecture capture technologies, Wharton chose Panopto, a software-based video platform for universities and businesses. With Panopto, the school was able to capture and manage lecture recordings from any PC using any combination of video cameras. This was a welcome change from the specialized appliances and media equipment required by past solutions.

Panopto also enabled Wharton to automate the entire lecture recording process. By scheduling recordings in advance, professors need only walk into the lecture hall at their regularly-scheduled time, open their slide presentation, and present. After each lecture, Panopto automatically produces and uploads the video to a secure video content management system without any interaction from the professor.

The Result: Campus-wide Video Backed by Top-Notch Customer Service
Over the last two years, Wharton has deployed Panopto to every classroom, providing a more flexible blended learning experience that captures every facet of in-class lectures. Throughout the deployment process, Panopto’s support team partnered with Wharton to integrate the video platform with the school’s learning management system and ensure that videos are streamed to students with consistently high quality.

“There are so many products out there that promise great capture, but no other solution delivers support and management like Panopto,” said Jimmy Lieu, Director of Information Technology, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Today, faculty and staff at Wharton are expanding the use of Panopto beyond the lecture hall, providing flipped classroom recordings that further personalize the learning experience and foster better in-class engagement.

“For more than a decade, The Wharton School has been at the forefront of online learning,” said Sean Gorman, Chief Operating Officer, Panopto. “It is a privilege for Panopto to work with the faculty and staff of this innovative institution, and to help provide Wharton students with a world-class education through the use of our video platform.”

About Panopto
Panopto’s mission is to help anyone share knowledge using video. Since 2007, the company has created software that enables businesses and universities to create searchable video presentations in minutes from any device. Privately-held, Panopto was founded by technology entrepreneurs and software design veterans at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science. For more information, visit https://panopto.com/.